A Single Flow'r He Sent Me, Since We Met*
Amy Schreibman Walter

By the time you swear you're his

Dear dead Victoria
Drink and dance and laugh and lie

Every love's the love before

He'd have given me rolling lands

I do not like my state of mind
If I were mild, and I were sweet

Lady, lady, never start

Men seldom make passes

Needle, needle, dip and dart
New love, new love, where are you to lead me?

Once, when I was young and true

So take my vows and scatter them to sea
Some men break your heart in two
Some men, some men

Woman wants monogamy.


*All lines, including the poem's title, are first lines of Dorothy
Parker poems, taken from The Best of Dorothy Parker.
Folio Society, new ed., 1995 (Index of first lines of poems, p. 231)

1996 © 2011